user experience | user interface

Advisor Transition Management

This is an internal feature, therefore I was not allowed to take any design artifacts (i.e use in portfolios). I used enhancements seen in the Schwab website(pictured below) as these are examples that are very similar.

Overview

As a Product Designer at Charles Schwab, I worked on maintenance and redesign for transitioning advisors coming onto the Schwab Advisor Center platform. The Transitioning Management platform, formerly the START (Start Transitioning Advisors Right Team) team served as a conduit for incoming advisors to upload their book of business to the Schwab Advisor Center platform.

The transition for Registered Independent Advisors (RIAs) is known as the most stressful period for advisors. Not only is timing critical to upload an entire Book of Business, this is also extremely sensitive client information. For years the process was manual and clunky with a large margin of error and my role consisted of enabling transitioning advisors to a digital onboarding platform.

As a result, client easy scores improved, advisor consultant service calls were drastically reduced, as well as paper use due to conversion to digital account open. Digital Onboarding was our main objective as this streamlined digital workflow would enable advisors to open, set up, and fund multiple accounts more quickly and securely.

Pictured below are examples of a detailed envelope with client details & document overview

objective

Change is hard!
My primary role was balancing user feedback from various sets of user groups to make the transition for advisors less strenuous and enhance our digital feature with business needs in mind.

• Account Delivery Type
  Advisor may want to open accounts digitally, but the end client wanted to keep it as a physical paper file with a wet signature

• Account Access
  Multiple clients with account access, what are some of the ways an advisor could send an account envelope to multiple clients, evaluate what affordances and permissions are needed to ensure safe delivery

• Account Open Status
  Advisors have to balance so much at once, a common issue was knowing the status of an account

• Seamless Integration
  Aligning the dashboard for START vs Schwab Advisor Center was inconsistent leaving users confused

I contributed to 40+ various feature implementations, platform enhancements include:

• Divide Envelope
  Create affordance from the account/envelope view to grant advisors the ability to split/divide specific account(envelope)
  into secure digital channel for faster delivery and account open

• Bulk Envelope Upload
  Allow advisors to upload and work through and open more accounts quicker and securely

• Account Search
  Functionality from the account/envelope page and Filter affordance

• Platform Alignment
  Continuously facilitated conversations with Design, Content and Research teams on the Schwab Advisor Center teams to align on language and design choices

Pictured below are desktop wires for the START Dashboard and the account details

Design process

• Kickoff
  Discuss feature enhancement and business needs with UX Research and Content to gather insights about the target audience, market trends, and competitors

• Compile Analysis
  Use detailed feedback from Advisors, Advisor Consultants, and Product to define user needs, pain points, and goals based on past usability studies

• Design
  Developing user flows, creating wireframes, clickable prototypes and creating annotated design specifications

• Usability Testing
  Evaluating the design by conducting usability tests with a prototype and real users to identify usability issues, gather feedback

• Implementation
  Facilitate detailed read out to share findings, and collaborate with Product and Engineering to bring designs to life

• Follow up & Iteration
  Continuously seek feedback from end clients and refine the product based on user feedback and evolving needs

tools

• Figma/FigJam

• Sketch

• Mural

• InVision

• Atlassian Tools(JIRA, Confluence)

• UserZoom